Decomposition of Spectral flow and Bott-type Iteration Formula

Abstract

Let $A(t)$ be a continuous path of Fredhom operators, we first prove that the spectral flow $sf(A(t))$ is cogredient invariant. Based on this property, we give a decomposition formula of spectral flow if the path is invariant under a matrix-like cogredient. As applications, we give the generalized Bott-type iteration formula for linear Hamiltonian systems.